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<title>It had the virtue of never having been tried by middlemarch</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27974891">It had the virtue of never having been tried</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch'>middlemarch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mercy Street (TV), Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Drinking, F/M, Female Friendship, Games, Gen, Humor, Jewish Character, Male-Female Friendship, no actual Star Trek characters appear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:09:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27974891</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The barman knew to steer clear around this time. The cadets didn't have that many ways of coping and he didn't get paid extra to listen to them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charlotte Jenkins &amp; Mary Phinney, Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney, Samuel Diggs/Charlotte Jenkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It had the virtue of never having been tried</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You know you’re supposed to fail, right?” Jed said, settling down next to her at the bar. Mary scowled—at the barman mopping the other end, providing her no good reason to ignore the man next to her, at her glass of synthehol, which yeah, was guaranteed not to leave her with a miserable hangover but which was, for that very reason, not giving her the satisfaction she wanted, and most certainly at Jed Foster, thorn in her side, burr in her hide, jackass-of-all-trades and frustratingly master of many, her command-track classmate and sadly, the lead in far too many of her sexual fantasies.</p>
<p>“That’s Charlotte’s seat,” Mary said. Sure, she was being rude but he probably wouldn’t even register it.</p>
<p>“She’s beating, no, trouncing Sam in Kadis-kot and I don’t think he even cares,” Jed replied. “Actually, he’s usually pretty good at it, so maybe he’s just drawing it out for the fun of it.”</p>
<p>“You think he’s throwing the game to get in her good graces. By which you mean her pants?” Mary asked. “Because that sounds not at all like Sam but remarkably like you.”</p>
<p>“Don’t believe everything you hear from Hale. And Lisette,” Jed said. “Eliza, yes, but I was much younger then, a mere cadet well-endowed with wild oats in need of sowing.” He’d waggled his eyebrows roguishly saying well-endowed, drawing the requisite grimace from her and an unhealthy flare of curiosity about how much he was exaggerating for comedic effect.</p>
<p>“Cripes,” Mary shook her head. “And they’re going to make you a captain.”</p>
<p>“Not right away, but yeah,” he said, grinning for all he was worth. She unwillingly added that expression to the fantasy catalog. “Partly because I get it. What today was about.”</p>
<p>“I get what today was about,” Mary said. “I don’t have to like it.”</p>
<p>“Look at it this way—no one can pull a Kirk on the Kobayashi Maru, but I feel fairly certain the idea would have occurred to you and you would have discarded it due to your extremely firm moral fiber, whereas I would have tried and cocked it up and failed anyway.” </p>
<p>“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” she said, swirling the amber liquid in the glass. She refused to even think of them as spirits. </p>
<p>“It was. As it didn’t and given that you understood the point of the exercise, why do you think you feel so bad, besides the fact that you are trying to drown your inexplicable sorrows in synthehol instead of quality Kentucky bourbon,” he said. He held out a flask, presumably of the aforementioned bourbon. The flask was laser-etched, probably monogrammed and she refused to even glance at the letters.</p>
<p>“This is a bar, you’re not supposed to bring in your own liquor,” she said. God, even she thought she sounded like a priss, but it was still his fault. She was sticking to that.</p>
<p>“You gonna tell on me, darlin’?” he said.</p>
<p>“No, and don’t call me darling,” she said, grabbing the bottle and taking a quick swig before anyone nearby could see her. He hadn’t been lying, the bourbon was extremely good, with a hint of vanilla and honey mixed with oak that synthehol could never quite capture.</p>
<p>“Hell, Mary, I didn’t think you’d actually—”</p>
<p>“Don’t offer, then,” she said.</p>
<p>“No, that’s okay, I just didn’t think you’d go for it,” he said. “You’re usually so thoughtful, so, so… competent about everything.”</p>
<p>“God, you make me sound boring,” she said. </p>
<p>“Well, your simulation was anything but,” he said.</p>
<p>“You watched?” she said. “I feel worse, give me the bourbon.”</p>
<p>“You’re welcome to another drink, but don’t have one just because you feel like you fucked up today. I was impressed, very impressed, by how you handled everything. You did—you did all you could, Mary,” he said, reaching his hand out like to was going to touch her—her cheek maybe or her bottom lip. She went very still and then he noticed his outstretched hand and dropped it.</p>
<p>“The instructors said the same thing, I heard them. Rear-Admiral Brannan said it was like you had the Sight. If you don’t take top marks for your sim, you’ll definitely be in the top five,” he said.</p>
<p>“Oh joy,” she said.</p>
<p>“That’s not making you feel better either? I mean, Hopkins basically gave a fucking sermon on the bridge and Emma shot her XO in front of the whole crew, once she figured out he was a saboteur. Hale passed out. I miscalculated the dose of antidote I was supposed to take, I left it too long, and I died,” Jed said. “You evacuated all your refugees except for the stowaway—it was just your command crew you lost and you sent out the distress call in enough time that at least their families would know what happened. What gives?”</p>
<p>“I cried,” she said.</p>
<p>“What? I watched the whole thing. You were like a fucking Valkyrie. Or a Vulcan having an off day,” Jed said, running the hand he’d recently extended through his dark hair. Her brain recorded that too.</p>
<p>“Not during it. Afterwards. I went to the restroom and I locked the door and cried for a half-hour,” she said.</p>
<p>“So you feel bad for feeling bad?” he said. “That’s not like too neurotic or anything.”</p>
<p>“I knew I was supposed to cope with failing,” she said. “And I did. Sort of. I faked it. I kept it together until I wasn’t being evaluated anymore and then I fell apart. But if it really happens, I’ll never have that chance, to feel what I need to feel,” she said.</p>
<p>“Grozit, Mary, you’re exhausting,” Jed replied. “It’s okay, all right? Sometimes, a lie is the best you can do. Sometimes, it’s the closest you can get to the truth—and that’s enough.”</p>
<p>“Dayenu,” she said, making him wrinkle his forehead. “It’s Old Hebrew. It means, ‘it would have been enough,’ it’s something my savta used to say. From an old song, a very old one,” Mary explained.</p>
<p>“Savta?”</p>
<p>“My grandmother,” she said.</p>
<p>“Well, you should listen to her then. And don’t ever try to double-cross Emma, because she’ll shoot you and gorram, she’s got good aim,” Jed said.</p>
<p>“Shove off, Foster,” Charlotte said, before Mary could think of what to say. It was lucky, because she was feeling the bourbon, even without a second shot, and the warmth in Jed’s dark eyes, the modest distance between his thigh and hers that was aching to become shamefully narrow, and then disappear. Or it wasn’t lucky, the Charlotte was hardly ever truly lucky, just extremely observant and brilliant and insightful, playing two games of Kadis-kot at once. </p>
<p>For once, Mary wished her friend had thrown the game. Or lost.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title is a quote from James T. Kirk re: the Kobayasha Maru scenario.</p>
<p>The Kobayashi Maru is a training exercise in the fictional Star Trek universe designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets in a no-win scenario. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and also appears in the 2009 film Star Trek. Screenwriter Jack B. Sowards is credited with inventing the test. The test's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe a no-win scenario, a test of one's character or a solution that involves redefining the problem and managing an insurmountable scenario gracefully.</p>
<p>The notional primary goal of the exercise is to rescue the civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru in a simulated battle with the Klingons. The disabled ship is located in the Klingon Neutral Zone, and any Starfleet ship entering the zone would cause an interstellar border incident. The approaching cadet crew must decide whether to attempt rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew—endangering their own ship and lives—or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt rescue, the simulation is designed to guarantee that the cadet's ship enters a situation that they will have absolutely no chance of winning, escaping, negotiating or even surviving.</p>
<p>Kadis-kot was a board game played with two or more players. It consisted of three sets of colored pieces, red, green, and orange, which needed to be placed on a hexagonal board. Every set was made up of round and hexagonal pieces of each color, although it is not clear if the differently-shaped pieces moved differently during game play. The board itself was divided into grids, and each grid had its own coordinate, such as grid 14-4 or 1-16. Although players chose the color they wanted to use in game play, it appears that all three colors could be moved by any player during the game.</p>
<p>Grozit and gorram are curse words lifted from Star Trek and Serenity.</p>
<p>Dayenu (Hebrew:דַּיֵּנוּ) is a song that is part of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The word "dayenu" means approximately "it would have been enough", "it would have been sufficient", or "it would have sufficed" (day in Hebrew is "enough", and -enu the first person plural suffix, "to us"). This traditional up-beat Passover song is over one thousand years old. The earliest full text of the song occurs in the first medieval haggadah, which is part of the ninth-century Seder Rav Amram. The song is about being grateful to God for all of the gifts he gave the Jewish people, such as taking them out of slavery, giving them the Torah and Shabbat, and had God only given one of the gifts, it would have still been enough. This is to show much greater appreciation for all of them as a whole. The song appears in the haggadah after the telling of the story of the exodus and just before the explanation of Passover, matzah, and the maror.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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